Comet! (an Ell Donsaii story #5 ) (23 page)

They stood anxiously waiting as
the port popped monotonously every three seconds.
Eventually
they got bored. Ell asked, “What’s the closest it’s opened so far?

“
One hundred and
three light
minutes
.”

Ell ground her teeth, thinking that a hundred and three was close enough but, she had to have
some
cut off to give Allan.
They sat, listening to the popping and watching the flashes of the star on the screen, sometimes far, sometimes close. Half the time, not visible
because they opened on the far side
. Never very close though.

Frustrated Ell said, “We could set it up tomorrow for Allan to run it. We just need to give him control of the switch that opens the cover over the port and lets the double ended port get sucked through.”

Emma sighed, “OK, I’m gettin’ pretty tired of sitting here in the col...”

Allan said, “Now.”

Spasmodically Ell’s thumb crushed the switch and they heard the “foomp” as the vacuum sucked the double ended port through.

Emma held her hand up for a “high five” and they slapped them together.

“How far out was that?” Ell asked.

“
88
light minutes.”

“Great,
a
rocket
could
make that in about
…
4 months
!”

Emma frowned, “Really? Wait, at 22 kilometers per second that should take…
” she squinted,
“
over
25 months
.”

Ell said, “Actually,
I’ve got
a secret,
can you promise to keep it for me?”

Emma
rolled her eyes
, “Sure.
”

“I can modify the ports so they’ll work up to 150 kilometers per second.”

“Wow, great! Why keep that a secret?”

“
Lot
of kinetic energy when something is going that fast. Trying to keep people from weaponizing our invention
s
.”

Emma raised an eyebrow. “
Lot
of kinetic energy at
22
kps
.”

“Well yeah, but the straightforward ports we make for stationary purposes will go that fast. It takes special circuits to get up to 150 kps and so far no one re
ally needs to go faster than 22. Especially now that we can place transfer ports around our own solar system.” She shrugged, “S
o I’m
trying
to keep it a secret.”

“OK,” Emma said dubiously.

“Let’s go evaluate the port and maybe put a rocket through!
The first ‘star
gate
!’
”

Back in the building they hooked up a video camera to the pair for the port that they’d just transferred to the Tau Ceti region. Sure enough the view through it was wildly spinning and tumbling but they saw a bright star flash past a couple of times and then asked Allan to recalculate how far the port was from Tau Ceti based on its angular diameter. This time he got a figure of
89
light minutes.

“Great!” Ell said, turning for her office. “Can you put through a rolled 2.5 centimeter port while I’m getting the rocket I had made up for this?”

Emma stared at Ell’s retreating back a moment then went to get a port from the stack
that
Manuel had made up for them. She mounted the rolled one in the transfer chamber in front of the one centimeter port they’d just sent to Tau Ceti. The transfer chamber was essentially a perforated metal chamber that sat in front of the port allowing an object to be placed inside it that would be sucked through by the vacuum when a port opened into space. The
metal
cage kept anyone’s fingers from getting sucked into the hole. She turned the port on, watched the rolled 2.5 cm port get sucked through and turned the one cm port back off. Then she mounted the pair for the 2.5cm port behind glass and opened it. It also showed a spinning tumbling starfield with occasional glimpses of the bright Tau Ceti. She moved the 2.5 cm port to a transfer chamber and opened the chamber just as Ell
came
back with a rocket
in her hand
.

Ell started to slip the new rocket into the transfer chamber but Emma said, “Wait, let me look at our first ‘starship.’ Tell me what’s different here?”

Ell said, “Not much really. It’s a standard 2.4 centimeter rocket except that it has a set of telescop
ic
lenses here at the front feeding the forward camera. We’ll accelerate it
up to 150kps and then while it’
s ballistic we can use this telescope to look for planets.
We especially need to look for the accretion disk. Tau Ceti is supposed to have a really big debris disk around it and we want to fly in either above or below the disk to decrease the chances our little rocket will get taken out by running into some space dust on the way there.”

“Wait, don’t we know if Tau Ceti has planets already?”

“
They haven’t found any
‘gas giant’ types. We don’t know if there are any small rocky planets like Earth.” She quirked a lip, “The popular theory is that if there
are
small planets they’ll be getting beat up by comets and asteroids from the debris disk and so life will be having a hard time
of it
.”

“
Oh, you mean there’
ll be a lot of extinction events from
asteroid impacts
?”

“Should be. So we might find primitive life but not bigger more advanced creatures. The big stuff would keep getting wiped out.” Ell shrugged and grinned
, “But pretty soon it won’t just be guesses and theories
...
” she waggled her eyebrows, “pretty soon we’ll
know
.”

Emma looked back at the rocket, “The circle on the side, I assume is a port?”

“Yup, another
7.5 centimeter
nitinol port wrapped around the outside of the rocket. Once it hits the cold of space
the
nitinol sheet will release and the
port
will stick out, ready to transfer stuff.”

Emma took the rocket
held it up, “What’s its name?”

Ell looked at it.
“No name. You want to name it?”

Still holding it up at arms length Emma said, “I hereby christen thee “Heinlein.” She
put it in the transfer chamber, saying, “It just seems wrong for our starship to be flying off with a big flap hanging off of it. I know the flap won’t affect its performance in the vacuum of space but dang it, our starship shouldn’t look like it just sprang a panel.”

Ell giggled, “I feel the same way,” she whispered, “but don’t let my rational friends know.” She pressed the switch and with a “foomp” the rocket
was sucked
out of the chamber.
“OK, let’s make sure our ‘sprung panel’ is working as a transfer port before we fly this thing all the way to Tau Ceti.”

They loaded up the port pair for the
7.5
centimeter port
that was on the side of the rocket. They
mount
ed
it behind a thick glass window and then opened
the port
. They saw a slowly tumbling starfield and closed it. “Allan,” Ell said, “do you have control of the rocket?”

“Yes.”

“Stabilize the tumble, orient on Tau Ceti and accelerate at
5g until it’s up to 150 kilometers per second.”

“OK.”

“Wait. O
nce you’ve stabilized the tumble but before accelerating, please give us a look through the telescope to be sure
the camera
’s working.”

A starfield with a bright star centered in it snapped up on their HUDs.

“Great, go ahead and accelerate up to 150 kps then shut down and go ballistic. Please
analyze
the images from the telescope for motion indicating a planet
or evidence of the debris disk.”

Allan said, “
Earlier you
indicated concern that the rocket might travel through the debris disk on the wa
y to Tau Ceti and suffer damage.
However,
the debris disk is more than 35 AU from the star whereas the rocket is
presently
only
10.5
AU from the star. It
is inside
the debris disk
and
will not cross
it
.”

“Oops, that was dumb. Please determine the plane of the system, then use the attitude jets to observe for planets in that plane.”

“OK.”

Ell turned to Emma
stretching her arms into the air, “Alright, we’re starfarers! But nothing more’s gonna happen for a while.
I’m heading for home.”

“Me too, though I don’t know if I’ll be able to sleep.”

Ell cocked an eyebrow, “Wanna go out instead?”

Ell and Emma climbed the stairs to “Top of the Hill,” a venerable college hangout
in
Chapel Hill
.
Ell felt a little nervous to be going out as herself but Emma had convinced her to try
at least one
night
out
undisguised.

As they walked through the bar Ell could feel eyes turning curiously her way but was gratified that no one came over to
pester her
for an autograph. Emma leaned up to the bar and got one of the ‘tender’s attention. “Wheat beer and…” She turned to look at Ell.

“Coke.”

Emma frowned. “Coke? I thought we were out to have some fun?”

“
Girl,
I’m
still
underage
.
You
went
to my
twentieth
birthday party.
”

Emma’s eyebrows
lowered
, “
Oh, yeah.
”

Ell winked,
“
Next
year you can buy me a beer.”

Emma turned back to the bartender, “Coke.”

They took their drinks and wandered through the crowd to
the outside
balcony
where they
lean
ed
up against the rail
. T
hey looked out
musingly
over the crossroads of the small college town.
Emma raised her beer
and whispered
, “To the stars.”

Ell quietly said, “Hear, hear.”

Emma turned. “I
find it hard to
believe that we just dispatched a mission to another star. Shouldn’t there be celebrations and fireworks and stuff?”

Ell
lifted
her glass and clinked it against Emma’s
, “Hear, hear
..
.
” She grinned, “There’s your celebration.
”

Emma eyed Ell, “So how’s your love life?

Ell shrugged, “Quite a few friendly boys. No
real
boyfriends.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t really know. Sometimes I wonder if there’s something wrong with me. I really do like these guys. Roger’s a great
friend and really smart and he’
s
so
very nice to me. He takes me out and doesn’t push me even though I know he’d like more. We have a lot of fun when we do go out. Same with Phil. Phil is a real hunk of course,” she raised an eyebrow, “and an
astronaut
. I had a lot of fun with a guy out in
Las Vegas
too.” Ell sighed and looked aside. “I
think
I should be in love with one of these guys. But I don’t know… I don’t… feel
the
spark, or
the
passion or whatever
it is
that you read about in books. Maybe there really is something wrong
with me.” She smiled, “But, I’
m having a good time, so I’m just gonna let it ride a while. Maybe I’ll know it when I see it?”

“You didn’t mention the guy with the band, Gordon.”

Ell rolled her eyes. “Yeah, that’s just messed up, huh? I like him a lot. Sometimes I’m afraid that I’ve got a typical
good
girl crush on the bad boy musician.”

Emma frowned. “What’s messed up about that? He’s cute, he’s great on the guitar and he can sing… And, he likes you. Seems perfect to me.”